Vis Diving Spots

Sydney

dive site type: naturedifficulty: easydepth range: 0-10 mdistance from the diving center: 0 nmshort characteristic: a light rocky slope transforming into a sandy bottom partially covered by sea grass and a stony area with yellow sponges, where even conger fish and seahorses are commonly seen

Just in front of the Hotel Helios and Nautica Hvar Dive Centre there is a small concrete pier, to which the diving boat can be moored. Next to it there is a hotel’s baths. Separated from the fairway by a racing lane, it is a safe place for the tourists. The size of the baths and a few concrete platforms with steps facilitating access to the water make it appropriate for the swimmers and divers being in the water in the same time. Divers from Nautica Hvar Dive Centre usually enter the water in the south-east part of the baths. There they have a platform, sunk there in purpose, simplifying walking with fins on feet and heavy equipment on back. Thanks to this platform, the dive site is easily accessible even for disabled divers. It is not the only sunken platform – one more is located at the depth of about 5 m and it is used mainly by the beginners during training.

The dive site in front of the dive shop is perfect for the beginners, for training and – due to activeness of nocturnal animals – for those, who enjoy night dives. The bottom is partly rocky, in some places sandy and in some covered by sea grass. It is a shallow place, but within the baths a depth of 10 m can be easily reached. The water in here is usually calm – only strong winds cause waving of the surface and intense mixing of water (in such cases training is held in a nearby basin). Fortunately such strong winds occur rarely and the divers even during their first dives have an opportunity to observe interesting animals.

On the rocky bottom there are numerous little crabs living in the shells left after snails and tube-dwelling bristle worms. There are also different fishes moving above the rocks, but the most interesting ones are living on the sandy bottom. In here striped red mullets are searching for food in the sand with their long moustaches. On the sandy bottom several small sea anemones can be found. Attentive divers can spot little shrimps living in commensalism with them. From time to time it is also good to swim above the sea grass to see nudibranches characteristic for this habitat, but what is the most interesting in this dive site is a place built with stones and covered by numerous yellow sponges. There the biodiversity is the highest. Quite often divers find there even octopuses, European congers and seahorses. Coming back to the diving centre it is easy to realise where to exit the water – next to it there is an old sewage pipe going to the middle of fairway. Close to it there are some crabs living, resembling those known from “Finding Nemo” movie, which were the only organisms next to the sewage pipe in Sydney.